Winding wheel
by mustacheguri
Summary: The girl came here often, like him, sitting by the graves of her precious people, and like him, stared at the memorial stone with dead eyes. ShikaSaku multichaptered story about piecing together broken pieces of their hearts.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I hope you enjoy this, and that you'll want to continue reading, because it's going to be a multi-chaptered story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

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* * *

Smoke twists in the air, out of the amber tip of the cigarette and the soft pads of his lips. It blows back into his face, a suffocating mask lying over his nose, but quickly dissipating. It leaves a sting to his eyes, one that matches the prickling of tears that is already ever present.

Shikamaru blinks and peers past the smoke that lingers in the space in front of him still, and lowers the cigarette. There is someone here. Sharp brown eyes make out the slender figure of a girl and strands of pale pink hair.

He relaxes back against the cool headstone, releasing the tension that straightens his spine and tightens his jaw.

It's just Sakura.

The girl came here often, like him, sitting by the graves of her precious people, and like him, stared at the memorial stone with dead eyes.

* * *

Sakura moves slowly, carefully, as she places the fresh flowers on each of the three headstones. She can feel the heavy weight of his gaze on her, but she remains unaffected – Shikamaru would not bother her.

After she makes sure that everything is the way it should be, she leans against the trunk of the tree that arcs over the tombstones and turns her eyes to the village beneath her.

The cemetery lies on a cliff, high above the village. She watches the people that are as small and insignificant as ants from where she stands.

The sky dims and clouds begin to gather, forming a thin layer of mist. She continues to watch. She watches them with empty eyes. It is busy, bustling down below. But everything up here is still. It's grey, desolate and clouded. Nobody would peer into the bleakness. Nobody would try to decipher her.

* * *

Shikamaru notes the way she sometimes brings sake up onto the hill with her, and he looks on as she continues to toss back alcohol, and continues to let tears well up in her eyes and then sink back half a minute later.

He would like to know why, but at the same time, he would not. It is easier to be oblivious and empty of thoughts than to be informed and full of knowledge. It must be strange, coming from a Nara, whose brains are supposedly filled with things.

He catches her eyes one day and she offers him a grin. Her lips are cracked, dry, like she doesn't even have the energy to lick them. The smile is brittle and laced with a little too much desperation. Shikamaru tries to smile back, but he knows that his expression mirrors hers. So he turns away and lights another cigarette.

When his eyes slide back to her, she has her back to him, and is looking down at the village once more. He stares at her waif-like form with half-lidded eyes. He thinks that when standing at the edge of a cliff, whether a person looks up or down, says a lot about how they are.

* * *

Sakura has never been very familiar with the boy. In her genin days, she blatantly ignored him, in her chunnin days; she spoke a handful of times with him, delivering messages and such.

And even now, her jounin days – she did not connect with him on a personal level, she merely respected him as a fellow shinobi, as a capable nin.

So she thinks it's funny how receptive Shikamaru is. It is funny how he seems to know. It is funny how he truly understands.

She supposes it's because they were both a part of the Shinobi war that ended only a year ago. It was a long war that dragged out for five exhausting years. She guesses that it's because they were both thirteen and young when it begun, and she thinks it may be because they both lost their teams in that very war.

Sakura likes to be away from the chaos below and near the clouds, near the sky. And he does too. But she is glad that she doesn't have to stay up here, with death and fog curling around her. She is glad for his silent, but solid presence.

* * *

The two figures reside on the cliff nearly every hour of their day aside from the work they have to do, and they have a way of existing that shows their weariness of the world and it's sad.

It's sad because these are teenagers with cold hands and dull eyes, who were once children with light in their eyes and hope in their hearts. It's sad because there's nothing worse than a child who has barely seen the world, yet seen enough to know that they do not wish to be a part of it.

And the two figures keep each other company.

They carry on like that for days, weeks, and months. It is an unsaid, unwritten rule. It is how they work. It is what they do.

Then one day, he makes a dent in their dynamics by asking her a question. And he speaks as if he were asking about the weather, and it's an almost impersonal question.

"What are you doing here?"

All at once, she feels her hollow chest fill with something disconcerting, and somewhat shocking. Her heart thumps. It reverberates around her body and she returns his gaze easily.

"I do not know."

Her answer is not a lackluster answer, nor is it a blatant dismissal. Her voice is not indifferent. It holds something in between the notes on its stave, a secret message that he catches.

* * *

It is a thing of progression.

They begin to speak more, and it maybe makes things better, just a little bit.

Even though there are still purple hollows under his intelligent brown eyes that just smolder like dying embers these days compared to the way they used to glow. Even though her dark jounin pants hang loose around her too thin hips, and she is made of delicate bird-bones that stretch the pale skin.

Almost a week later, when the sky has been stroked by navy-inked fingers that remind her all too much of someone, and the darkness is pinpricked with droplets silver that adds to the weight of her burdened heart, she decides to speak to him on a whim.

She observes the way the smoke turns back and settles on his face before fading off, "Your nose must be choked with the scent of ash."

That is what she says. It is something spoken on an impulse, but before she can retract her statement, he replies with a husky voice that rolls across the space between them, "I can smell more than the smoke."

He tells her he smells the calm of the night. He describes it through slow, drawled sentences that are barely strung together with clarity. She nods as he explains the throat-catching chill of the stars and as he expresses the vast expanse of blackened air.

And Shikamaru can see it in her eyes.

 _She understands._

. . . . . . .

Then Sakura decides to tell him her story.

And Shikamaru tells her his.

Their perfect facades begin to show cracks and something like love begins to seep into those gaps. 

* * *

A/N: Chapter 2 will be up in a few days, maybe a week. Please review and favorite/follow!


	2. Chapter 2

Shikamaru

He was only thirteen, and had just turned genin when news of the war tears through the village.

* * *

It is not compulsory for genins to take part in the war, but Shikamaru's dad walks in with him to the draft office anyway. _It's time to do the right thing, this is your chance,_ he says, patting his back.

He smiles back in a way that feels like a grimace, and his dad should see through that, but he doesn't. His dad never sees. His dad is the head of the Nara clan but can't understand the simplest of things that Shikamaru wishes he could.

Shikaku may not seem the type outwardly, but he holds glory and victory to a very high regard. And what he expects from his son is to enter the war regardless of age and rank.

So Shikamaru walks through the halls, dodges past men twice his size and wonders if he'll do something particularly heroic – something worth his dad taking a second look at. In training sessions, he focuses and tries to shake off the feeling of his dad's hand on the back of his neck.

* * *

When the time comes, he placed into a five-man cell. And when the shinobi who are supposed to work with him stare down at his small, boyish build in a mix of distaste and scorn, he suddenly misses Chouji and Ino. But he did not wish for them to be there. They would be safe in the village.

The group infiltrates the enemy's lands, and slip in quietly. They are there to gather Intel. He leaps smoothly over the rising wall that separates them from the forbidden territory, and he lands perfectly. It's absolutely soundless, the balls of his feet brushing against the ground exactly in the way that he'd been trained to, but had never quite perfected.

He can't wait to tell his dad that he'd done it, and he just smiles into the dark and lets his eyes adjust. A perfect landing, what are the odds?

It turns out that the odds are ridiculously, frightfully in his favor. His entire cell is eliminated and he ends up being the only one left within an hour of travelling across the unknown terrain.

They'd been moving in the rocky, near barren land for a while before they realized it was a high-level genjutsu that they were trapped in. When it was dispelled, they found themselves surrounded left and right by twenty enemy nins and they were done for.

It was nearly pathetic how quickly their cell had been offed. Shikamaru would have scoffed and questioned the standard of Konoha's shinobi had he not been so terrified.

The moment the last of his cell was killed, he'd tossed a barrage of inaccurate kunai before he turned heel and ran for his life. He'd ran as fast as he could go, legs burning and vision blurred with tears.

The only reason he got away was that they hadn't given chase. They'd probably thought that one little boy couldn't do any harm. And they were right – he couldn't. He was cowardly.

Once he got far enough, Shikamaru realized that he had not a clue where he was, and exhausted, he'd just barely concealed his chakra, and hidden out in a tiny cave on the outskirts.

It was the worst night of his life. Scared to death, a hand clenched around his pouch, the other on a sharpened kunai. Feels sick, but keeps swallowing down. He keeps trying to focus on the entrance of the cave, ready to fight, or maybe bolt, if someone, something came.

He stayed awake, tensed and coiled until the slightest peek of daylight, before he slipped out of the cave and gathered his wits long enough to find his way out and retreat back to the camp.

Shikamaru spends the next two days crying his eyes out, curled up in the squeaky bed and scratchy blankets they provide.

* * *

The next expedition goes nearly just as bad and Shikamaru doesn't know if he can do this for another however-many-years it would take for the war to end. He is placed into a platoon of fifteen nins and as they speed through the desert, the first line of men are all hit instantly.

Shikamaru very nearly loses it when he sees their heads sliced clean off, and gags when one lolling head falls almost mockingly in front of his feet. But he sidesteps it and continues going, careful to avoid the trap that those first men had fallen for.

That's how they lose five men.

And then the rest of them end up in a gaping hole that appears out of seemingly nowhere, before a hail of razor sharp edged stakes come flying from above them and he sees the fleeting panic in the captain's eyes. In that moment, he wants to punch the man.

It goes clean through the men and their chests, torso, legs, and Shikamaru ends up with someone on top of him. He can hear the raspy, gargled choking of the shinobi dying on him. He waits it out and holds his breath.

An hour later, he shifts from under the pile of corpses and drags himself away from the bloodied bodies. His fingers and cheeks are slick with warm blood and when he turns back to his fallen comrades and their dismembered bodies, he thinks, _We're in hell._

Shikamaru drags the two others who are still alive out of the pit. Luckily, one's a medic and she heals them as best as she can. The oldest of them, Yamato, takes charge. Shikamaru almost expects to receive orders to return to base, to retreat, but what comes out from the rough-looking man's mouth is:

"Are you ready to move on?"

It's like they didn't just lose eleven men but Shikamaru closes his eyes, and his dad's voice rings in his mind like a shrill bell, so he stands up to follow. They manage to secure the length of the bridge to the next zone a few hours later.

He doesn't know how many men he's killed or help kill and he doesn't care to. He knows he's saved his crew just as many times and they him, as well. Shikamaru can't remember what he was supposed to be doing originally. He just goes. One foot in front of another, duck if something's coming your way, stay alert. _Don't get yourself killed._

This mission is a success even though he and Ryohei return missing eleven men and one medic.

Shikamaru spends one day choking back tears and sobs in the tent.

* * *

A month later, he stops crying. It's after yet another botched mission and he feels so tired he could die. It's so fucking dumb because those people didn't need to die if they'd found the spy planted in their group earlier, if the spy hadn't gone and betrayed Konoha. Anger boils in under his skin like an itch he can't scratch, even though the spy is already dead.

Shikamaru draws a hand back to throw a punch at the tree in front of him, maybe hoping it could release some of the pain he felt inside. But he pauses, clenched fist inches away from the rough bark. Then he drops his hand to his side, and lets it hang limply.

"Shikamaru," he doesn't turn, doesn't move, and just stands there. He knows it's the commander. The man behind him sighs and rests a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Are you angry? Who are you angry at? The spy?"

"I'm angry at myself for being so goddamn weak and not trying hard enough. I could have saved them, but I failed."

A beat skips by and the commander speaks voice rough and laced with years of experience, "Shikamaru." Shikamaru ignores the way his skin crawls at the way the man says his name. It grates at his nerves the way it sounds just like how is father says his name.

"It's okay to show emotion."

He wants to spit out the words that have been burnt into his mind and carved into his heart with a razor sharp blade, _Shinobi rule 25: A shinobi must never show emotions._

"It's okay to have breakdowns and throw fits and toss things around. It's okay to get angry and mad. It's okay to get upset and cry your heart out. It's okay to be sick of it all. It's okay to not be okay. But it's not okay to give up."

When Shikamaru makes no response, the commander pats his shoulder again, before walking away, "Don't give up, Shikamaru. Don't lose what makes you human."

The commander dies in battle a week later and Shikamaru purges those words violently from his mind and exiles them into the deep recesses. It is better to not feel, after all.

* * *

From then, the missions that follow are nothing but cause and effect, movements all direct and practical, nothing but mission objectives. His chest is hollow and everything's all wilted and dead. Words are nothing but information and all he bothers with are commands and orders.

One day, when he nails yet another enemy in the straight in between his eyes, on his forehead with a sharp flick of his wrist and a kunai, he realizes that he can't even remember his first kill, or what it was like. Shikamaru's heard so many horror stories of how people wouldn't ever forget their first blood, but now he knows its just stories and nothing more.

You don't register when you kill someone on the battlefield. They're just alive one second and then they aren't. And you find the blood soaked weapon in your hand but you can't quite bring yourself to care because another one is coming at you and you've got to keep going.

It's a painful epiphany and he wishes he didn't realize it.

And if he cries that night, no one is there to see it, so did it really happen? He'll never tell.

* * *

Five years later, Shikamaru is the leader of a whole platoon - eight cells in total, forty-eight men. He is discussing strategy with others, when the news comes that the war has ended. The men in the tent fall into complete silence and stare at each other with wide eyed disbelief and the kunoichi, who brought them the news grins, and then chuckles, "Shocked into silence, yeah? Also, the Hokage told me to drop these bottles of wine for celebration. I'll leave you commanders to it! Don't get too drunk!"

Then she throws Shikamaru a glance dripping in honeyed tone, "I mean, you guys work so hard for us, it's only right that you enjoy yourselves," she rests a hand on Shikamaru's bicep and her fingers curl on the muscle.

"It must be difficult, witnessing all the bloodshed and death. But after a couple of drinks, and maybe something more," she winks at him, "you could forget it all."

Shikamaru draws his arm back, and leans down, breathe blowing across her face. The kunoichi's pupils are dilated in lust and her lips are parted. Lips brushing against her earlobe, he murmurs, "Do not mock a pain you have not endured."

She recoils and blinks, "I'm sorry – I didn't – I didn't mean it that way. I was just – I apologize. It was rash of me to assume that you could forget such a thing so easily – " Her stuttering goes on for a few moments, before she rushes out of the tent.

Shikamaru glances at the other men and he knows that they are the same as him. There is nothing to feel happy about, and there is nothing to feel sad about. There is only emptiness. And they would never forget.

* * *

He finds himself stumbling out of the tent and somehow ending up lying on his back in an open field, staring at the vast sky above. He dully acknowledges that he hasn't cried in nearly three years, and hasn't laughed in even longer.

He's achieved everything his father wanted and he's lost everything. Shikamaru never attended Ino and Chouji's funeral. They died defending their village in an unexpected attack. Even though they never enlisted, they still stood bravely before their enemies and fought with every fiber of their being till they moved no more.

Shikamaru hadn't seen his mother for three long years, and then one day, they just told him that she was to be buried on a Monday. He didn't go to see her even then, because he was caught up trying not to die on the battlefield.

Then it was Asuma, Kurenai, Neji, Ten-ten… the list was endless. There was nothing left for him in Konoha, or outside of Konoha.

His veins were cracked and there weren't any more stars left in his sky. Everything had been black for as long as he could remember. His lungs are clouded with self-hatred and god, he cannot breath.

There was only blood on his hands and the painful feeling of guilt.

* * *

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Review and whatnot, please.


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura 

She was only thirteen, and had just turned genin when news of the war tears through the village.

* * *

No one forces her to enlist herself but both Naruto and Sasuke are drafting in and she can't imagine what she would do if she lost them. The brother she never had, Naruto, with his brilliant sapphire eyes, blonde hair, bronzed skin and sunny smile. The one she loved more than a friend, Sasuke, with his dark onyx eyes, raven hair, ivory skin and arrogant smirks.

While she can't protect them because her jutsus and skills are nowhere near theirs, she can learn to fix them when they get broken. So she finds herself scribbling her name onto the medic-nin chart and sitting in a class filled with other hopeful kunoichis.

Sakura absorbs the lessons they give her, spends evenings memorizing her kit and what to do without any of it, how to tourniquet a leg, an arm, what requires chakra healing, what's just a bandage.

She tries so hard she can't think straight, misses an entire page in the exam, fails it, and has to retake it, even though the whole class knows she knows it better than any of them.

It doesn't matter. If she can't do it in a goddamn classroom, how is she going to do it on the field? It's the voice in her head asking, not the sensei's.

* * *

The first time she gets onto a field, there are bodies everywhere and she feels like she's a broken record. She tears her eyes away because her first priority is her team – Sasuke, Naruto and a few nins that's just been introduced to her not long ago. Then they go down, one by one, like rag dolls.

Naruto begins yelling something in her ear but her mind is falling away to 20 tabs of morphine, dressings in the left pouch, pressure on the wound, medic, medic, medic. She knows it's best to keep running, she knows.

But one of the men she was just introduced to this morning, Izumi – Izumo or something, is lying ten feet away, staring at her with wide, pleading eyes. She can't even remember his name but he's got blood all over him and she's scrambling to get to him.

Her fingers won't stop shaking long enough to thread the fucking needle. The man on the ground is not a lost cause. Just needs a few stitches to stop the bleeding and a dressing. Doesn't even need chakra.

But she cannot thread the needle. "Why the fuck do they expect me to do this?" She spits as she shoves the needle back into her pouch and puts more pressure on the man's torso.

An older jounin stumbles past her, then stops and whips around.

"Medic! He's not worth it. Leave him," he shouts and he looks like he might physically drag her away.

 _Medic-nin clause one: No medic-nin shall ever stop medical treatment until the lives of their party members have come to an end._

Stick to the clause.

She blinks once, twice, before turning back to the man, and just leans harder on the wound, grabbing for a morphine tab, pricking it into the man's shoulder, still thinking about the stitches.

The man dies moments later, his breath leaving him in a stutter and she…can't. Can't understand why her hands are covered in blood or why she thought that this man could be healed.

The only thing that snaps her out of it is a kunai that hisses by her ear. She presses flat against the ground beneath her as a rain of senbons pierce the man's body.

 _How dare they keep attacking when he's already dead,_ she thinks bitterly, as she reaches for his dogtags (doesn't let herself look at his name). The flat piece of metal is wet and smeared with blood and she can't, but she does it anyway - shoves his body aside and runs.

* * *

Her platoon is dispersed and split in the chaos and she can't find anyone.

But she feels almost eerily calm now that the worst is over. So she saves fifteen men on her own – they are not on her platoon but she saves them anyway. Because their medics are not there – dead, or maybe they ran away to save themselves. She wouldn't blame them.

It's easier now, without the weapons and the fire. Her hands have stopped shaking and her training is coming back. Her head is flooded with text, mercury and iodine can't mix, aspirin before morphine, but she can't stop thinking about the needle and thread in her pouch.

Sakura saves fifteen men but she can't stop thinking about the first one.

* * *

A week later, Naruto is killed.

That's when she realizes that she's much too weak. She didn't have the skills, she couldn't save the boy she swore she'd protect. Sakura can see the accusing glare that pierce her skin like knives that comes from Sasuke and Sasuke turns his head from her – like she's not worth even looking at – before he says this:

"You're pathetic. You're weak, Sakura."

Her name was uttered like something disgusting, repulsive to him. It was a thing said in a moment of anger and sorrow, and the dark-haired boy never meant anything by it. He knew that Naruto had been too far gone for a regular medic to save but he took it out on her anyway, just because she was there.

Sakura doesn't defend herself, even though she wants to shout, _what do you expect me to do? I've only been trained for two months before being thrown into this. No one taught me how to save someone with a gaping hole in chest where their heart should be._

She shakes off those thoughts immediately. Sasuke was the same age as her, wasn't he? And he was doing fine on the battlefront. It was her own fault. She was weak, and she was pathetic. How could she call herself a medic if she couldn't even save her own teammates? And she stares down at her useless hands, bites back the tears that want to fall.

* * *

In the next year, her skills have improved vastly, and she saves her team over and over, again and again, and they have one of the highest survival rates out of all other platoons. But eventually they all suffer an injury too serious, or get separated from the group and she isn't there to stitch them up or start their heart. So they die, get replaced, and every time a member of their platoon gasps their last breath, he throws that same glance at her and it grips her heart like a vice, adding to the guilt that's already choking her to death.

He repeats the same words with the same coldly repulsed voice, "You're pathetic. You're weak, Sakura."

And she'll stare down at her wrist that's been scratched raw by her own nails, and think, _it's always nice to hear your voice, even if your words break my heart._

It's not because she still holds that childish crush – she got over that illusion a long time ago. But because it means that he's still alive, that he's not dead like Naruto.

* * *

 _Medic nin clause two: No medic nin shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon._

The team is scattered on the ground, dead. Sakura keeps trying to filter the green chakra to her hands but it's futile – her pathways have been blocked and the poison is spreading rapidly through her veins. It's a paralyzing poison and by the way Sasuke's legs are dragging noisily on the ground, he is getting affected as well. So she turns around and tosses him the last antidote silently.

He takes it and presses the needle into his thigh. She turns around, her arms are failing her and her legs are numb, and she swears under her breath, but continues to move forward. Then, in a moment of horror, her legs give out under her and she slips on the branch she was using as leverage to get to the next one.

All at once, Sasuke's compact body is pressed against hers in a way that would have made her squeal a year ago, but now her eyes are hard and she's scanning the area. She can sense that there are shinobi closing in. Sakura knows that Sasuke is finding her to be a burden, so she struggles against his chest, tries to get herself to stand, but he tightens his grip, "Stop."

Sakura's pale fingers spasm against his shirt, "Look. There are enemy nins approaching, and you are in no condition to fight. Just leave me here and run. They might not find me."

They both know that was not going to happen. If he left her here, they would find her and they would kill her. Sasuke presses his lips in a tight line and shakes his head stubbornly. Sakura shoves him with more strength this time, emerald eyes burning, glowing, and she hisses, "You hate me, and I know it. So just leave me here and you'll get to run faster and you can get rid of me at the same time. Killing two birds with one stone, right?"

Then her back is pressed against the trunk of a tree, and his face is inches from hers, his dark eyes staring at her with an emotion she can't read. His voice rumbles against her skin.

"I don't hate you."

She blinks and watches the way his eyes flit to her lips then back to her eyes. In a moment of disarmament, neither of them notices the shinobi standing in the tree above them.

And Sasuke turns around quick enough to throw her onto the ground, and position himself over her before the kunais rip through his skin and into his bones. Sakura stares up at him, and he gives her a small, sad smile with blood sliding down his chin and onto her cheek.

"I'm sorry," a long, tapering finger comes up to wipe the blood of her cheek, and he presses a kiss that tastes like blood and salty tears onto her lips. Then his entire body weight slumps onto her own small frame and her breath comes out in a weak exhale.

Her eyes are dragged shut against her will and everything is dark. She's only glad that she managed to stick to the clause.

* * *

Sakura wakes up in a world of pain, and gets told that she was retrieved and rescued. She is made to repeat what happened out there and her breath comes out shaky. The woman questioning her asks her with concerned eyes, "What's wrong?"

She lets out a barking laugh that sounds more like a sob. The thing is her hands are shaking and her tears are falling and she doesn't want to do this anymore. Everyone is dead, no one is left. She is a failure.

Sakura wipes the tears away with cold hands and recites the incident flawlessly. Then she gets out of the hospital bed, limps through the halls and requests for a new team and a mission.

* * *

The third clause burns in her mind: _No medic nin shall ever stand on the front lines._

Half of her newly assigned team is dead and the other half is either struggling to hold their ground or unconscious. She can hear a weak grunt of pain that escapes her team member's mouth and her blood turns to ice. She can't let it happen again, she won't.

There are ten, maybe twenty shinobi surrounding them.

A feral grin curls her lips. She lunges at the shinobi with bared teeth and snarls, with her bare hands. Then, he's lying dead on the ground, and her fingers are sticky and wet with his blood.

That is the day that Sakura learns that chakra scalpels can be used to harm – that medics can kill just as effectively.

So she tosses her medic certification, signs up as a battle shinobi, and begins to work her way up the ranks. It's deadly, how quickly she gets to the top. By the time the war draws to an end, she's the commander of several units.

But those qualifications are only titles and there was only blood left on her hands and the painful feeling of guilt.

* * *

A/N: This was a difficult chapter to write, after Shikamaru's one, because I didn't want them to sound too similar but idk. Review? Also, the next chapter is the last chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

It happens on a Tuesday – months after Shikamaru learns Sakura's story and after Sakura learns his.

* * *

The tree at the edge of the cliff is without her usual figure beside it. He is slightly bothered by the fact that she is not present on the cliff, and feels something akin to worry unfurling in his chest. Then her familiar, carefully modulated voice comes out of nowhere and lulls him out of his almost sleep, "I brought you something."

She tosses something small in his direction, and he plucks it out of the air automatically. It is a metal box that lays cool in his palm. He looks up and the girl is staring at him, anticipating and studying him. He lifts the lid of the box with calloused but deft fingers, and he sees the cylindrical heads of the cigarettes. There are twenty.

But it is not until the lid flicks back that he sees the inscribed words that taint the metal. They are stark, obvious and they shout at him.

 **Leave with me.**

The message is all too clear.

 _Leave the tears and grief behind, leave this cemetery, leave this place where only dead people belong. Leave with me._

His mind is suddenly too loud and his jaw clenches, before he throws her an almost accusing glance, "What?"

Sakura remains unruffled. She leans down, slips one of the twenty cigarettes between her petal pink lips and he watches with fascination as she lights the tip with practiced ease. She has never smoked in front of him before, so he is entranced when she inhales gently, chest rising under her thin black shirt.

Sakura is so pale that she nearly blends in with the silver wisps of smoke that come up in front of her face like a screen. But striking eyes, that are green, green, green with flecks of pirate gold pierce through the veil of fog. It steals the air from his lungs, and he has to shift so that he is looking down.

* * *

For days, for weeks, for months, Shikamaru has been unable to feel anything. He has been numbed to the very core. But then this girl, with her pale pink hair, deceptively fragile form and emerald orbs slips into his life without him even realizing and he is gradually levered into a pool of emotions.

The liquid blisters his skin.

It curves around his sharp edges and softens them with care. It bleeds into his skin until he is no longer gray, but splattered with bits of pink and green. It slips into his brown locks and replaces strands of hair with expensive silk. It is addictive like nicotine, but it soothes his lungs – his heart – with careful caresses instead of scratching nails. It seeps into his eyes and gives him life.

She blinks back at him with calm, apathetic eyes, but he can see her hands trembling, bunching up her shirt and it rides up ever so slightly. The skin – white, with faint scars – flashes at him when she moves, the languid light of the fading sun painting rays on her slim hips.

Shikamaru stands up slowly, leveling with her. His movements are liquid and his posture is lazy, but his eyes are burning, alive. Something like anger, boils in his eyes.

He holds his stance for a moment longer – a handful of heartbeats, fingers twitching by his side – and then he breaks. The expression on his face is like she's never seen: desperate, defeated and hungry all at once, eyes drowning dark in his face, pupils blown.

"Yes."

There is a stretch of silence that drags out between them, only the sound of passing wind whistling in their ears. Then her slim arms are wrapped around his masculine form that is made up of all leans muscles and long limbs, and his nose is filled with her scent.

He trembles against her for a moment, before mumbling against her skin, "Troublesome." He says no more, and Sakura lets him crush her torso against his, holding him still.

* * *

In the quiet, Sakura murmurs in his ears, voice shaky, "I prefer rainfall over sunshine, and maybe that explains why I've fallen for you over anyone else," her fingers tighten around his wrist enough to make him bruise, and they are sinking to their knees, "But I'm always the silly girl who ends up crying over someone who's not there to wipe her tears away."

He gently touches her shoulders, and when she moves back, his heart aches. She is slim with bones made of dust, and he can see all the veins racing around under her near transparent skin, creating an electric blue map under flesh.

She shines so bright that she puts the slowly dying sun to shame. She is more beautiful than the painted skyline around her, and she is sweet, kind and talented and he thinks the world of her.

And so he presses a chaste kiss on her forehead, "Between you and me, I'm totally gone for you," then he presses another kiss on her cheek, "I'm here. I don't care if you need to stay up crying all night long. I will stay up with you to dry your eyes and there is nothing you can do to lose my love."

She lifts her head and meets his eyes that shone as bright and crisp as the loveliest shade of golden brown. Sakura nods quietly but he knows what it means to her and he turns his face into her throat again, mouth open and hot against her skin.

And he laughs, the low pleased sound of it vibrating from his chest into hers. It's the first time in forever, and it only makes him smile even wider as he presses closer.

Maybe you just have to live for the small things, like being called beautiful, or someone picking up the pen you dropped or laughing so hard that your stomach hurts. Maybe that's all that matter at the end of the day.

You don't need to have an exceptionally important purpose to be happy.

End.

* * *

A/N: Woah, this was a really difficult story to write, but I hope you guys enjoyed it. I would greatly appreciate it if people gave some reviews, because I've noticed that people follow or favorite, but never review! I am excited to read feedback. So, yeah. PLEASE REVIEW!


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